Healthcare graduates for the 21st century; Knowledge and attitudes relating to alcohol and brief interventions.

Abstract

Final year students studying a variety of healthcare courses (involving inter-professional education), at six Scottish universities completed a questionnaire (spring 2009). While changes in current health policy endorse graduate attributes promoting shared responsibility, an overlapping of roles, analysis of findings revealed differences between the professions in terms of level of understanding of health guidelines, acceptance of role and perceived confidence in personal knowledge relating to alcohol misuse. Two professions were predominantly viewed as key to this area of practice only by their own students (OT and pharmacy) while three (speech and language, radiography, dietetics) doubted the importance of their role.